While the bones of the home were heavenly (while sitting in the living room you can look up and see all the way through the cupola) the style felt a little more like a lodge than a home. So, the timbers and doors and windows were all painted white (Benjamin Moore “Linen White”), in a terrifying process using plywood sheets and ladders to reach the some 40 feet up. Iron balusters were updated with steel cable and tempered glass. In Betsy’s studio, she took the dark green former stables and painted everything white and added casements under the window to allow for more natural light in the somewhat cave-like space. The last vestige of the lodge feel for Betsy and Peter is their fireplace, and because of the scale, it will take a while for them to figure out what the perfect replacement will be. While the open spaces were something Betsy had dreamed of, and one of her favorite features, they do create the design challenge of being able to see everything from one end of the house to the other. Betsy had to make sure when she was designing the space that everything felt cohesive. Scale is also a key design element in their home — pieces that once felt huge in their last home were now dwarfed in the massive barn house.

Sarah and her husband Matthew Latkiewicz, a television host, writer, and producer, arrived in Oakland with only what they could squeeze into their Honda Fit. This included Sarah’s grandparents’ coffee table, Matthew’s two favorite chairs, some art, and their clothes. After weeks scouring Craigslist and thrift stores, Sarah realized the best place for reasonably priced home goods was estates sales. “That is how the best stuff gets into the bloodstream of the Bay Area. That and the Alameda Flea Market.” From her estate sale and flea market explorations she began assembling a collection of what she calls “soulful objects.” It took about three years before Sarah felt like she had made a cohesive and comfortable space of their 1920s Art Deco apartment.

The den in Kris Drayovitch’s home in Plano, TX is full of furniture that originally belonged to her grandparents along with other family heirlooms, like this vintage Suzani above the couch from her parents’ trip to the Mediterranean. She shares, “I love having pieces in my home that have a history and remind me of loved ones every time I walk into the room.”